Category Archives: History

Second calling

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One noteworthy feature of the North Dakota landscape is an old box car converted into farmyard storage. Sadly, I think many of them are now part of the abandoned, deteriorating “fallen farms” which catch my eye so frequently. As they crumble, they take a bit of history to the dust with them. The lettering on this one was too faded to read. As the property was signed “No Trespassing” I was unable to get a closer look, settling to take my photos from the road.

Meet the new Lieutenant Governor of the great state of North Dakota

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Drew Wrigley was announced as the new Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota today. You may remember him as the US State’s Attorney under the administration of George W. Bush. He’s the one who prosecuted Alfonso Rodriguez for the murder of UND student Dru Shodin a few years ago. He was replaced by a big Democrat Party donor/operative once the Obama regime took over in 2009.

The announcement was made by our next Governor, current Lt. Governor Jack Dalrymple. Since Governor John Hoeven is moving on to the United States Senate, Lt. Gov Dalrymple will assume to role in a fashion that hasn’t taken place in North Dakota in 75 years.

It was a very happy (and well-attended) event at the Great Hall of the North Dakota State Capitol. The second Mr. Wrigley stepped out, the place erupted in cheers. I was pleasantly surprised and excited as well! I wish both these men the best and will pray for them as they prepare to take over the executive branch of our state government.

I see the newspapers are all using stock photos (or none at all) for this story. I sent one to Rob at the Say Anything Blog along with the news of Wrigley’s selection just before the announcement was officially made. I guess that chalks one up for us crazy bloggers! Not that we’re keeping score…

The most popular doors in Bismarck (and yes, they ARE unlocked)

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I’ve spent a lot of time around the capitol grounds since the late 1980s. It used to be a great evening hangout for high school and college kids; it’s still one of the best places to play frisbee in town; and it’s simply a nice place to walk or simply hang out. If you’re like me, then you know what I’m talking about when I say the doors pictured above are probably the most popular doors in town.

If not, you may be wondering why I think so. Simple: this is probably the single most frequently used setting for portrait photography in all of Bismarck-Mandan! Sit out on the lawn some Saturday and have a picnic, and you’ll likely see numerous wedding parties come and go to have their photos taken on the steps in front of these doors. You may also see family or senior portraits taken directly in front of them. They’re rather noteworthy, and as such make a great photo background.

I have several friends who are portrait photographers, and they get a lot of demand for this location. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s a great setting for your special photos! I just find it noteworthy and mildly amusing to watch the groups come and go as they take their turn in front of a popular local landmark.

Thanks to Adam, who politely reminded me that yes, these doors are still open. I mistakenly assumed that, since the library entrance I use most is on the side of these steps, these doors no longer function. Of course, I had to go check them out myself. There’s some pretty neat stuff on the other side of them, I found out! Check back in a day or two.

I usually enter the library by the circulation desk downstairs, but from now on, I’m going to make it a point to enter through these big, well-known doors!

2010 TEA Party photos (and bonus video)

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As promised, here are some of my favorite photos from last weekend’s TEA Party rally, held on the steps of the North Dakota state capitol building. It was a well attended event despite the cold and wind.


Boy, it would have been nice to have brought my own chair. Of course, since I was running around with a camera, it wasn’t very practical to be dragging furniture with me. It would have been comfy to huddle under a blanket though, if I didn’t have so many photos to pursue.


My favorite TEA Party sign of the entire day. Brevity is the soul of wit.


This gentleman came in a close second. Way to have fun with it!


Not only did this guy sport a TEA Party shirt and funny sign, but that’s also a Canon EOS camera around his neck. Good taste!


Viva la Reagan revolucion! President Reagan was MY President. I was in sixth grade when he was shot. I didn’t reach voting age during his terms of office so I never got the chance to vote for him, but I would have in a heartbeat if I’d been able to do so.


If you’re ever looking for a guy to explain currencies, commodities, and world markets…this is your guy: Eugene Graner of Heartland Investor Services. He can make the complex understandable. If you want a good nuts-n-bolts explanation of how disastrous our government’s fiscal policies are, he can present it to you in a way that’s easy for a non-economist to follow…and with a strong dose of common sense.


One of my favorite “political guys” is Gary Emineth, the final speaker of the day. He’s the one who opened up the North Dakota Republican Party to citizen activists like myself and was steadfast in making people realize that Republicans and grass roots conservatives like me who are leary of simple party affiliation are fighting for the same causes. Things like the GOP Chairman’s Luncheon and the Take Back Washington Rally are ideas that came from Gary. He had a fantastic speech too, but more on that in a little bit.


Indeed. This is a shirt from a 2009 rally, actually, but I just like the design better than the ones they had this year. It’s a good question to ask: what WOULD our founding fathers do?


Rick Berg, our next United States Congressman, was present. He had a table where people could meet him, ask him questions, and sign up to volunteer. Guess what? Rick’s political opponent in the upcoming race was conspicuously absent. Which one of them is in touch with North Dakotans? Hint: he’s pictured above.

Mr. Berg didn’t take to the microphone. He didn’t use this as a campaign stop or rally. He didn’t attempt to make this event about him or his campaign. In fact, his name didn’t even appear on the flier. He simply came to the event with some of his campaign helpers and a little table, and he talked to people and was available to listen. I got to meet him and let him know I’m doing my part with those silly little YouTube videos and stuff.


Music by Gordon Court. He has played at other events as well and has some catchy politically themed songs as well as Christian and contemporary music.


Here’s a succinct sample of Gary Emineth’s speech toward the end of the event. I often forget that my new Canon 7D can record video, but this time I remembered. I thought you might like one of the more inspirational bits of his speech, and I wish I’d remembered about the video feature when Gene Graner was speaking! You need to hear these two guys every chance you get.

Keep up the enthusiasm, my fellow North Dakotans! Let’s set things right in November!

Cold War Mancation Part Four: Cavalier Air Station

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Heading east on highway 5, you can see this giant concrete cube (with a slanted north side) from the road long before you’re near it. Then the road drops down a hill and you can’t see this thing at all, since the Cavalier Air Station (at times named Cavalier Air Force Station) is surrounded by trees. I found out the hard way that this site is very much active and there’s a young man with a firearm at the front gate. I wasn’t getting in for pictures here. That’s okay…as you can tell by the awful light in this shot, sunlight was scarce anyway and it was time to set up the campsite.

After a beautiful stay in lovely Icelandic State Park overnight, we managed to get some really nice light in order to feature the PAR array. I’m told that this thing can spot an object the size of a basketball coming over the North Pole! Wild.

This PAR system is also part of the larger Stanley Mickelson Safeguard Complex, which included the now abandoned Nekoma facility I posted about earlier. It had its missiles removed long ago, but this giant array still watches the northern skies. I could tell you more about this site, but probably not without ripping off David Novak’s site, www.srmsc.org. He’s got all kinds of links and photos of these facilities and how they served. Please visit this site!

I haven’t exhausted the Cold War Mancation photo series yet…stay tuned.

Cold War Mancation, Part Three: the tower formerly known as OMEGA

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Actually the second stop on what we later termed “the Cold War Mancation™” was here: NCTAMS LANT DET LaMoure. Leave it to the military to throw more acronyms at something than you can shake a 1,200 foot stick at. This is that 1,200 foot stick, by the way.

As this sign indicates, the alphabet soup above stands for Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area, Master Station Atlantic…DETachment LaMoure. This is as close as you’ll probably ever get to it, too. It’s surrounded by signage typical of a national security site, and a guy on duty here assured me that civilians are definitely NOT allowed access.

This tower used to be part of the OMEGA Radionavigation system. This was a worldwide navigation system for aircraft which was begun in the 1960s and 1970s. It operated at a very low frequency, around 14kHz. Compare that with the beginning of your AM radio dial, which starts at 530kHz, and you’ll see how low that is. One of the first things you may notice about this tower is the odd attachments on the guy wires. They look like insulators, and I think I know why…more on that in a second.

One other feature is the “top hat” of guy wires attached to the top of the tower. I believe some of the guy wires on this “umbrella type” tower become part of the array. I think that has a lot to do with the additional care to insulate the wires. If they’re not insulated, they can affect the capacitative load of the tower, making it very hard to tune. This may be even more difficult with VLF (very low frequency) signals, I’m not sure.

Depending on who you ask, there were only eight or nine OMEGA towers functioning around the world when GPS stuck a fork in it. The only other one in the USA was/is in Hawaii. These towers were no longer needed for navigation, since GPS assumed that responsibility. Instead of the Coast Guard operating this facility, the Navy now runs operations here.

So what does this tower do now? It still sends VLF frequencies, but it’s used to guide submarines now at I think 150kHz. Some of the other former Omega towers were destroyed when we started switching to GPS, this one was fortunate enough to survive and serve our nation’s submarine fleet.

In a way, it’s sad that this facility has been retasked. The Omega Inn in LaMoure? Renamed. Omega Cafe? Couldn’t find it. There is an Omega Cinema in the mall, however, and a listing for an “Omega room” on the mall directory board. Since the term “Omega” no longer applies, I suppose that’s to be expected.

Here’s some background information about NCTAMS. (Link)

I’ve also added this place to my Google Maps, too. Click here for an aerial view. (This has been fixed.)

Never fear, there’s more Cold War Mancation™ coming soon!

Cold War Mancation Part Two: Nekoma Missile Base (UPDATED)

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This giant pyramid is about the last thing you’d expect to find out in the middle of the North Dakota prairie… yet here it sits. It’s part of the defunct Stanley R Mickelsen Complex, part of the Safeguard anti-ballistic missle program.

The pyramid is the most striking feature of this complex, which operated for about four months before being closed. It housed the Missile Site Radar (MSR) with circular antennae on all four sides of the pyramid. This phased-array radar allowed tracking of incoming ballistic missiles as well as control of the ABMs.

Sadly, this structure has seen better days. The inside is flooded and the equipment has been removed. The outside is beginning to show its age as well. Can you imagine the power needed to operate these huge arrays?

That’s what these giant structures are for. Among the more confusing of the site’s many protuberances, these are actually the intakes and exhausts for six absolutely monstrous engines, used to spin generators capable of powering the facility.

Without an aircraft I can’t give you a photo of this that does it justice. It’s the missile field, which at one time contained both Spartan and Sprint anti-ballistic missiles. The Spartans were designed for long-range interception, and in case of failure the Sprints would be deployed. Both used nuclear blasts to knock out an incoming warhead, which due to EMP concerns really isn’t practical. One cool thing is that the Sprint missiles went from zero to Mach TEN in five seconds. How do I strap one of those to my Suzuki?

This base was built in the 1970s, operated for a matter of weeks, and was then shut down. The town was all set for the boom of having a military base next door, and then suddenly it all evaporated on them. Here’s a must-read article about the impact of this base’s construction and subsequent closure on the little town of Nekoma.

The Library of Congress has a small collection of photos from the site’s construction available online. A really nice aerial photo of the facility is available on Wikipedia and I think may come from the LoC collection.

Here’s a link to a Google Map I’m working on with various photo sites marked for your enjoyment. This link will allow you to view the site from above via satellite. This gives a good idea of what the missile fields look like.

Many more mundane buildings still inhabit this facility, although the base housing has been moved away. Various shops, administrative buildings, the security station, the chapel, and other such buildings are still maintained on site in case the Army chooses to return.

WARNING * (Don’t say you haven’t been warned) * WARNING

This base, while abandoned for purposes of the Safeguard program, is still a US Army facility and protected government property. YOU MAY NOT ENTER THIS PROPERTY WITHOUT PERMISSION. PERIOD. I don’t know what the punishment is for trespassing on a site like this, but I don’t recommend it. You can get really great views from the road on the south side. While doing so you’ll see signs indicating that this still belongs to the Army. Take them at their word.

I wish I’d taken photos of some of the other buildings in the area, including the chapel with the Christmas decorations still hanging in the window. If I find myself in the area again, I’ll be more thorough.

(UPDATE) I came across this website today, srmsc.org. It’s got a ton of information about the entire Mickelsen Complex and its function. Check it out!

Cold War Mancation, Part One (updated)

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As I mentinoed before, I took a little photo vacation last weekend with one of my closest friends. It was a trip dubbed the “Cold War Vacation” due to the nature of many of our stops. One of them was to the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Historic Site, north of Cooperstown. I’d been there before, he had not. This was a great opportunity for both of us, as I have a new camera this time.

You can see more about the topside part of this historic site by reading my previous post about this facility. This time I’m just going to focus on the two capsules down below. This is the doorway to the hardened equipment building, a capsule-shaped bunker with a blast door weighing around twelve tons if I recall correctly. One guy can move it.

Generators, pumps, filters, the works. Everything required to keep things functioning down below…all hung on a suspended platform stabilized by giant gas shock absorbers.

Next we have the launch control capsule, with its own puny little 8 ton door. The doors on these capsules are only as large as is required to get equipment in and out. Unlike the front door of the capsule at the Minuteman I national historic site in South Dakota, this one is not painted with anything witty. I got to peek behind here and check this time, a luxury I didn’t have during my first trip.

The last crew to serve down here marked the occasion on their way out. My understanding of the Latin at the bottom is something along the lines of “in the care of eagles.” Those holes are where the giant pins of the blast door interface to secure the capsule.

Inside the capsule are the facilities to accommodate the crew, communicate with topside and command, and of course launch the missiles. There’s a potty even smaller than the one in your average camper as well as a single bunk.

One of two stations manned by the missileers during a shift. Notice that the chair is secured to the floor on rails, as well as the five point harness used to keep the operator in his seat in case of an anticipated attack. The men and women serving in these capsules need to be able to launch their missiles, and being knocked out of their chair would impede that.

Here’s where the shift commander would sit. I appreciate the scenery adorning the wall on the upper right, I bet it broke up the monotony a little bit. Obviously there’s no window seat!

Here’s where the serious stuff happens. Each station has one of these, where the infamous “keys” would be inserted and turned simultaneously. Funny thing about those keys…

“DO NOT DUPLICATE.” Seriously. I found this so hilarious, that a key capable of launching a nuclear weapon would have the same stamping as the key to my dorm room! Even though it should go without saying, these keys bear the warning. If you look at the toothed head of the key as well as the really interesting shape of the end and cut grooves, it’s obvious that Ace Hardware probably isn’t going to have a blank for this anyway.

On the way out of the capsule you get a look at what I’m told is dubbed “the Norwegian snowflake.” The list on the right is from the crews as they each served their last shift with this missile wing before decommission.

This site is amazing. You can get more information and listen to some relevant podcasts by clicking here for the State Historical Society’s page. If you visit, tell them you heard about the site here. I got to hang out for a while and chat with some of the staff and the site director (a former missileer and narrator of one of the SHS podcasts). It was a real treat. There’s plenty more I haven’t even described here, so you’ve got plenty of surprises awaiting.

Update: Announced yesterday was the news that this site has won an award: click here for more information.

This is one bear with a splitting headache

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I’m old enough to remember Clyde, the former star of the Dakota Zoo. If I remember correctly, I think he was the world’s largest Kodiak bear. A life-size wood carving of Clyde has been placed inside the zoo’s Discovery Center in his honor…that’s one tremendous bear!

A friend of mine once told me that there are three things that concrete does: it gets hard, it turns gray, and it cracks. Well, wood carvings do a couple of those things. As the wood ages it often develops cracks in inconvenient places. This carving of Clyde appears to have done so. I don’t think it detracts from the statue or its tribute at all, but it did make an opportunity for a “splitting headache” joke!

This statue really is quite large, as was the real Clyde. To get this shot I had my camera on a monopod, with the foot wedged into my collarbone, and the camera fired by remote as I held it aloft. Oh yeah…I was standing on a stump at the time, too. Here’s to you, Clyde!

This isn’t the only remarkable tribute to Clyde, although it’s far more permanent than my other favorite. Right after Clyde’s passing, someone made an enormous sand sculpture of Clyde lying on his back on the sandbar beneath the original Liberty Memorial Bridge. It was quite plainly visible while driving over the bridge until nature took its course and slowly whittled away at it. I wish I had been a photographer back then! I’m sure pictures of it are floating around somewhere…just not in my collection.

Memorial Bridge musings

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This was the sunset scene from the Memorial Bridge last night. It was a very colorful scene, especially from where I was standing. It wasn’t the golden-hued blast I was anticipating, but definitely a nice bit of God’s handiwork to appreciate.

This brought to mind the fact that this bridge is fantastic in every way EXCEPT for the absence of a sidewalk on the north side! Thanks to this omission, it’s darn near impossible to get a clean sunset photo during the summer, since one must look northward to do so. I say “almost” because I still have my ways…

By the way, you may have noticed these sections of the old bridge as they’ve now been placed in memorial parks on either end of the new bridge. Cool, huh? The parks are not yet completed but I think they will be soon. The overlook on the Bismarck side might be a nice sunset viewing spot too, by the way!